My name is Tabassam Yasin. I was born and raised in Sheffield, and I'm a student at Sheffield Hallam University studying business and finance. I got involved with a volunteering project, Football Unites, this year. There are six or seven student volunteers with a project coordinator. It involved thirty or so refugees from the Northern Refugee Centre, and we had a 5-a-side football tournament.
One of the reasons I chose this project was because it was working with refugees. It is something that I wanted to open my eyes to a bit more. I am a Pakistani myself and I kind of understand the sentiment of refugees. However, being born and raised here you can never fully understand what refugees go through so I just wanted to get more knowledge on the subject, and understand things from the refugee perspective; how life works and what it involves.
All the way through I met people who affected me. Many people caught my eye in terms of their character. Because I was born and raised here, the English attitude is a bit reserved, and you're not quite as open as you should be. The refugees themselves though, what's amazing is how open they are and how different they are from what you expect them to be. You have a preconceived notion of what you expect people to be like, and when you meet people it is just completely different.
Even though I know it's just a football tournament we organised, its something that gets people together, and everyone gained a better understanding of each other. Football is kind of a universal language, and everyone knows what they have to do - it doesn't matter what language, or what creed, caste or race or anything, that's one of the benefits of sports; it's universal.
I guess I realised how I can't play football, for one thing. But I gained a better understanding of refugees and to a certain extent learned about what they go through. I was only with the group for 3 or 4 months so I didn't get a full understanding, but speaking and interacting with people, that was nice.
What surprises you basically, about the media and the way they report refugees is very negative. Politically speaking, in my opinion the government and the media they just see refugees as people coming in as a statistic. There's no back story. When you hear the stories, it puts things into perspective and you realise how hard it is.
Definitely I would encourage people to get involved with the project I worked on. I am reserved in my nature, but the group were brilliant, and the refugees themselves, they were the stars of the show. Teams were random, and people were just mixing in. The project won a gold award for achievement at the University.
